A number of medical ailments may be treated and/or diagnosed through the application of a magnetic field to an afflicted portion of a patient's body. Neurons and muscle cells may be a form of biological circuitry that carry electrical signals and respond to electromagnetic stimuli. When a conductive wire loop is passed through a magnetic field or is in the presence of a changing magnetic field, an electric current may be induced in the wire. The same principle may hold true for conductive biological tissue. When a changing magnetic field is applied to a portion of the body, neurons may be depolarized and stimulated. Muscles associated with the stimulated neurons may contract as though the neurons were firing by normal causes.
A nerve cell or neuron may be stimulated in a number of ways, for example, transcutaneously via transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS may use a rapidly changing magnetic field to induce a current on a nerve cell, without having to cut or penetrate the skin. The nerve may “fire” when a membrane potential within the nerve rises with respect to its normal negative ambient level of approximately −90 mV, for example, depending on the type of nerve, local pH of the surrounding tissue, and/or peripheral nerve stimulation.
A magnetic stimulation component may be used to produce the rapidly changing magnetic field inducing a current on a nerve cell. The magnetic stimulation component may fail or operate improperly during treatment, which may result in improper treatment for the patient. For example, the magnetic component may appear to operate correctly, but actually may be producing magnetic field pulses outside of designed device specifications, potentially resulting in improper diagnosis and/or therapy being administered to the patient. Administering an incorrect magnetic field pulse to a patient can affect the magnetic stimulation diagnosis and/or treatment adversely. For example, the treatment provider may believe that the patient is not responding to the treatment, when in fact the intended treatment is not being administered to the patient. Thus, the treatment provider and/or diagnosing clinician may be led to make treatment decisions based on faulty information.